Monday, August 8, 2016

Last week the New York Post graced its front page with two—count
‘em—photos of a naked Melania Trump.

The Donald was nonplussed, responding that the photos were
beautiful because his wife was beautiful. Apparently, he had gone to school on
the prior dustup over Heidi Cruz.

No one else was bothered either.

In the past, Judith Miller and Ann Marlowe remind us,
respectable women did not do such things. Today, a lot of women and even
teenage girls do it routinely. To their detriment.

Considering how often I have argued for decorum and
propriety, I am obliged to agree with their larger point. Namely, that we are
so used to such exhibits that we are numb to them. For that we are poorer. If
we cannot look up to our leaders and count on them to promote good behavior by
setting an example, we have a problem.

As Confucius once said, if leaders cannot lead by example,
by having a sense of shame, a culture is obliged to create more and more rules
and regulations to produce a semblance of harmony.

Anyway, Miller and Marlowe identify the cultural inflection
point:

Sharing
nude selfies is just the latest form of "empowerment," or
exhibitionism, at the expense of self-respect. Prosecutors across the country
have been confounded about whether to criminally charge minors who
"sext" indecent photos to one another. One scandal last year involved
more than 100 students at a high school in southern Colorado—about 10 percent
of the student body. Maybe that explains the silence over Mrs. Trump's
indiscretion: We've become inured to such self-inflicted violations of privacy.

Not
long ago, being president demanded a measure of decorum. But that was when
Americans expected more from their politicians (and from their celebrities).
Yes, Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan were actors. But they conducted themselves,
on screen and off, in ways that made their transition to the Oval Office
relatively seamless. Can you imagine a young Nancy Reagan posing nude? Or a
youthful Betty Ford, then a model and ballet dancer? Or, for that matter,
former first lady Hillary Clinton?Come to think of it, wasn't it Hillary's husband who broke through the modesty barrier with indiscreet behavior that was more than likely to be exposed on public?

I imagine different people have different levels of tolerance for exposure. Apparently Kate Winslet, for example, is embarrassed by not even her actual nudity, but a nude sketch from the movie Titanic.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2597012/Kate-Winslet-insists-shes-haunted-famous-Titanic-nude-sketch-scene-opens-THAT-red-carpet-autograph-snub.html---Winslet, 38, was attending the premiere of new movie Divergent in Los Angeles when she was presented with an accurate rendering of Jack’s sketch – but refused to sign it.

‘I don't sign that one,’ she told Yahoo Movies. ‘It feels very uncomfortable. Why would you do that? ... They were asking me to sign it. People ask me to sign that one a lot, and actually there's a photo of it as well that someone's lifted from a still of the film.

‘That photo gets passed around. It's like, 'No, I didn't mean for it to be a photograph that I would end up seeing 16, 17 years later.’’

She added: ‘It’s still haunting me. It’s quite funny really.’---

Perhaps she just didn't think the sketch was good, or perhaps she'd have the same reaction to an actual nude photo or screen shot from the film?

But maybe that's a good test. If you're too embarrassed to sign your autograph on a public picture, its probably a bad idea to have the public picture.

And now we don't just have arty-nudes, but photoshopped nudes where the body and face don't even have to belong to the same woman any more, and every detail can be augmented or diminished as fashions dictate.

Stuart: Considering how often I have argued for decorum and propriety, I am obliged to agree with their larger point. Namely, that we are so used to such exhibits that we are numb to them. For that we are poorer. If we cannot look up to our leaders and count on them to promote good behavior by setting an example, we have a problem.

I do find this claim as a bit hypocritical, since Stuart just shared for posterity another artist's unrealistic wall-sized painting with a general likeness of Hillary's face.https://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2016/07/hillary-finds-her-inner-vamp.html

So pointing out fake images of rival candidates in demeaning attire is fair game, but if a woman does it because she's beautiful and a model, and proud of her body, then that's a bad thing 20 years later because we say so?

Overall I would say Melania's photos are no different that Arnold Schwarzenegger nearly-nude body building photos and he's also surely proud of how he looked, and the power and status he gained by using his body to promote himself.

We can assume Trump will get more votes, from men at least, because they admire a man who can marry a younger beautiful woman. And I imagine she's an intelligent woman, at least or especially emotionally intelligent enough to keep the peace with a potentially volatile or unpredictable husband who needs constant ego stroking to feel good about himself.

Myself, I'm (ideally) more cautious of people of either gender who are especially attractive, regardless of level of nudity. The problem I consider is that attractive people, or high status people in any regard, often can get away with things that others can't, and this becomes a potential character issue, where they are not forced to face their own behavior as directly, so whether by innocence or direct awareness, they can use this power over others to get what they want, and not think about it.

But I otherwise don't care to judge. The world's not fair or equal, and we all get our life lessons eventually, and just delay different lessons depending on our "assets" and how we choose to use them.

AO..."The problem I consider is that attractive people, or high status people in any regard, often can get away with things that others can't, and this becomes a potential character issue"

There is some truth in that...but, OTOH, people who are unattractive and/or low-status often become bitter, and their bitterness causes them to do very bad things and justify those bad things to themselves.

I, too, find exceptionally beautiful people to be intrinsically suspect. As well as spectacularly talented athletes like Michael Phelps, who never should have been allowed to lead Team USA. That honor would have been better bestowed on a relative nobody.